The Hyacinth House Pt. 02

I do love the way he calls us Madeleine and Jillian, it makes me sound almost sophisticated. You, of course, are all tall and French sounding and stunning anyway, so it makes no difference, just sexier. Bitch :). But I melt, every time, when he calls me Jillian,and my precious pussy goes all quivery and gets adorably wet.

Or is that you? Goodness me, Mads... But not in an email, Jilly, that would never do.

Love you babe, be good.

Jilly xxx

Ps: I'm going to go read Adam's memory and loss stories. Sounds a bit serious, those ones. Toodle pip. If you hear sighing, that's me.

Love again, Jills.

To: Jilly

From: Maddy

Date: August 21, 2019, 1:25 PM

Jills, I'm writing this quickly, lunchtime, On the Square. The same booth, where I met Adam that day. The owner, Ruth, keeps looking across, it's like somehow she knows. What a bloody turmoil I've got myself into. You, me, Adam. I'm all a dither, Jills, I'll admit it. As my gran would say, you're all sixes and sevens, girl, what's got into you? My mind is tumbling over so much stuff. When you get back, can we hide away for a couple of days? I really need to talk, there's - things I want to say. Not bad things, Jills... well, let's just say for now I think I'm falling in love.

Shit, look at time. My coffees cold, I've been sitting here daydreaming again. That's happened more often, these weeks. Love you, darling, see you Friday night. Big hugs, and tell me about the story. I've not read that series yet.

Love, Mads xxOO

(Special big hug Jills. I'll explain)

To: Maddy

From: Jilly

Date: August 21, 2019, 8:24 PM

Are you okay, babes? Couldn't get away sooner, but private now.

To: Maddy

From: Jilly

Date: August 21, 2019, 9:06 PM

I tried to call you, Mads, but your phone went through to answer. So that heavy breathing was me. You must be out, or have I forgotten about netball again?

I'm exhausted, off to bed so please don't call. I'm going to assume you're okay.

Jilly

Ps I read that story series. Christ, one of those chapters made me quiver. Twice. I didn't even know I really wanted that, but I think I really do...

To: Jilly

From: Maddy

Date: August 22, 2019, 12:35 PM

Tell me, Jills! Which one?

To: Maddy

From: Jilly

Date: August 22, 2019, 12:37 PM

The ass-fuck one

To: Jilly

From: Maddy

Date: August 22, 2019, 12:38 PM

Haven't you ever?

To: Maddy

From: Jilly

Date: August 22, 2019, 12:39 PM

Never

To: Jilly

From: Maddy

Date: August 22, 2019, 12:41 PM

Jilly! You naughty girl!

To: Maddy

From: Jilly

Date: August 22, 2019, 12:44 PM

I know. Even I'm blushing ;)

* * * *

"What's he going to say? When you ask him?"

Jilly was curious. She was still coming to terms with Madeleine's revelation, which she had finally stuttered out late on the Saturday night, after Jilly had got back from the conference and begged Mads to let her sleep till she couldn't sleep any more. The two women then met for a late lunch in a small beach-side café near Maddy's house, and the lunch turned into a bottle of wine or two, a long walk on the beach; the return trip arm in arm, feet cold and wet in the water. Their shoes dangled from their fingers.

Back at Maddy's place they both took long showers to warm themselves - "Just like with Adam, but no Adam," mourned Jilly, and she was utterly delectable, lost in one of Maddy's long fluffy dressing gowns. They cooked up some toast and eggs, scrambled for Jilly and an omelette for Mads, before ending up in Maddy's bed, propped up on pillows with a Netflix movie running.

And that's when Maddy babbled it out, incoherently at first and then slowly, until Jilly had no doubt what Maddy was actually saying, what she meant. What she wanted. And when Maddy carefully undressed Jilly and made love to her, twice, Jilly had absolutely no doubt at all.

On Sunday morning their conversation continued; again, interrupted twice. The first time, when Jilly couldn't keep her hands away from Maddy's sensitive pre-menstrual breasts, ended up with a mutually explosive sixty-nine. Later, Maddy watched as Jilly satisfied herself, her red-tipped fingers sliding apart the petals of her cunt and twirling fast on her clitoris, crying out for Maddy when she came, "Oh babes, is this real?"

It was, the taste of Jilly's honey sweet cunt on her fingers and in Maddy's mouth served as proof.

"Jilly," Maddy said, and it sounded like she'd rehearsed the words several times, to get them right, "I want to watch Adam fuck you. Is that weird, to want that? Tell me it's not too weird. I don't want him to think I'm some kind of strange sexual freak. God knows, I want him to fuck me too, but watching... just the idea of it, it's fucking hot. And to eat his cum from you, dripping out. Jesus, babe, you could squat over me, let his cum drip all over my breasts... smooth it all in."

Jilly looked at Maddy, astonished at the pent up sexual energy and lust her girlfriend was suddenly finding and expressing. "Fucking hell, Mads, when you finally decide to turn, you turn every which way. I'm not complaining, but where's all this come from?"

"Adam, somehow. The way he responded to me. And us. Wanting us both, but no favourites, no jealousy. No competition. It's like he lives for pleasure, but puts ours ahead of his. Putting us first, that's the thing about his sexuality. It is about him, but at the same time, no it isn't." She held Jilly's hand. "He's made me open my eyes. To myself, to you." She smiled. "I might be slow, but I do get there in the end!"

"You're worth the wait, darling, every second." She meant every year; she'd been so very patient, waiting, but never expected this. Jilly gazed at Maddy, still not quite believing what was happening. "It is like in his stories, isn't it? It's pretty obvious he adores women, his women." Jilly was affected by him, just as much as Maddy was. She laughed. "Does this mean we're Adam's women?"

Maddy smiled. "Do you know, I think we might be. But he's our Adam, too. It works both ways, I reckon."

"You're right. It does. We've got our claws in him." Jilly admired her long red fingernails and imagined them running down Adam's very fine cock. "But what's he going to say, when you ask him?"

* * * *

"Say, Madeleine? What am I going to say?"

Adam smiled at her, and all of a sudden, with that smile and in a rush of quick understanding, Maddy knew that her sexual time with this man was rapidly unwinding, was fast running down to zero. Because in those eyes, in his smile, was something that Madeleine had never known, never had. It wasn't indulgence, it was much softer, so much simpler than that. Could this man love a woman and not want her? Maddy thought only daughters had that. But she -

"You don't honestly think that any normal, healthy man is going to say, 'Oh no, I don't want to sleep with Jillian, she's not my type,' do you? And 'I want to watch'? - oh no, that's going too far?" Adam sat across the table from Maddy - they were leaning into each other, affectionately close.

Ruth and Lizzie, from the café, watched with an almost envious fascination. "How does he do that?" Ruth asked.

"It's called 'paying attention,'" replied Lizzie, who'd figured it out from watching Adam over several encounters. "Right now, she's the only woman in the room for him, the only person who exists in his world. See, he's a mirror, but she's doing more of the talking. If you look."

"How do you know this stuff?" Ruth asked.

"There's a girl in my psych class, Juliette. She knows him."

Adam touched Maddy's hand. "It's not strange at all, Madeleine, not to me. A little mystifying, perhaps... but even then, not really, not when I think about it."

He took a sip of his coffee - he'd given Maddy the little teddy biscuit that came with the cup, for her tooth was even sweeter than his - and gazed at the woman before him. She was beautiful, as she always was, her hair coiled high in a messy bun, with a colourful scarf around her neck, for it was winter, still cold.

"You really are very beautiful, Madeleine. You must get used to people saying that."

"You say that for my confidence, don't you? Not because it's true."

"It is true, Madeleine; but for your confidence, yes. You dismiss yourself too quickly, and you shouldn't." He brushed a stray hair away from her cheek, to make her look her best.

"But Jillian," he said, returning to the subject of their conversation, and the reason for Maddy's nervousness when she'd called him. "Of course I will. Say no to Jillian, say no to you? That's a silly suggestion." But he didn't think she was silly, not at all.

"But you, Madeleine, what's this really all about? Bundling Jillian up like a gift. Or am I the one who should be wearing a ribbon, tied up in a bow?"

Adam knew Madeleine well enough to know that her request, simply stated with not much preamble, wasn't the only thing going on here, that there was an undercurrent of something else. There was the obvious sexual dynamic between the two women, bubbling rapidly to the surface. At first, Adam thought it was simply Jillian's attraction to Maddy finally getting through, but he'd come to realise that Madeleine was more complicated than she first appeared. This desire for voyeurism was a part of it, but there was something else. He was curious. He wondered if she even knew.

"It's..." she started, but paused immediately, gathering her thoughts. "Jilly's more sexual than me. She... she needs fucking far more than I do. I can get by longer without sex. I do the weights, my sport. I buzz my body that way." She ran a finger down the back of her hand, as if affirming her own self, her own physicality.

"But Jilly... I want to make love to her like a man does, being inside her, taking her softness, making her my woman. Hearing her moan as her legs spread and she's helpless." She looked up at Adam, into his eyes.

"But I can't. I've not got a cock, and toys aren't the same. But you can. Jilly loves your cock. Your splendid, very fine cock. We've talked about it, Adam. Well, Jilly has, she's seen more than me and... " She retreated within herself, remembering their conversations, hearing the glee in Jilly's voice and seeing the gleam in her eyes.

"It's not just your cock. It's all of who you are, your 'you-ness'." She took Adam's hand. "This new thing with Jilly, me and her. I want it to last a really long time. But I don't want to stop her having a man, not when she loves men so much. She's... I don't need a man so much..."

She looked down at Adam's hand in hers, and turned it over, studying it. She traced the biggest vein on its back. She held it with both her hands. Her hands were warm, soft and gentle.

"Am I even making sense, Adam? If anyone knows what I mean, it's you."

She took a deep breath. "I want... I want to make love to Jilly like a man does, but I can't. So I want to watch you love her. And... I can imagine I'm you." She gazed straight into Adam's eyes, begging him to understand. "Can I ask that? Will you do that, for me?"

"Madeleine," he said, holding both her hands in his, and his hands were bigger than hers, but they too were warm and gentle. "Yes, I can do that."

"Thank God," she exclaimed, "I was so scared you'd say no."

"Oh, Maddy, no. I'd never say no. Not to my darling girl."

She looked at their hands on the table, still not quite sure what had happened.

When they parted, Adam having walked her up to her office on Hargreave Street, Maddy kissed him hard on the lips. "Adam," she asked, "in the café, was that a daddy moment, do you think?"

"Do you know, darling, I think it might have been. With sex on your mind, but not awkward with it."

She hugged him again. "If it was, it was nice. I'd quite like to be your daughter."

He laughed. "Let's sort out Jillian first, shall we? You've got some orchestration to do. Will she wear ribbons?"

"Oh, much better than that. We're going shopping to buy corsets. Do you have a favourite colour?"

"You know I do!" Adam replied, turning to go.

"Adam," Maddy called, just before she went into the building. "Thank you. For everything. For saying yes, when I thought you'd say no."

"It'll be my pleasure, Mads." He blew her a kiss. "Let me know when."

It was only when she sat down at her desk that Maddy registered he'd called her Mads. Only her most precious friends called her that. Jilly, and now Adam.

Maddy looked out the window at the clear, bright blue sky, and she smiled. All afternoon, she smiled.

Sally from Accounts looked at her and thought, 'That girl's in love. I wonder who the lucky man is?' Sally smiled. 'Or woman.' Sally occasionally wondered about Madeleine's inclination and was never entirely sure.

* * * *

"Jilly, there really is a Bonnard's. It's just off The Lane, you know, that funny little arcade. I looked it up on the net, and there it was, 'Auguste Bonnard, Ladies' Couturier.'" Maddy was excited - here was one of Adam Cain's story locations, and it was real.

"I've never heard of it. Is it new?"

"The online blurb sounds like the shop's been there for ages, but I swear, this time last year I'd have said half that upper floor was vacant. But I've made an appointment. It all seems mysterious - apparently you block out a whole slice of time, and this Bonnard fellow gives you his personalised attention. It says he used to be a leading parfumier in London, in the fifties or sixties. I can't remember exactly. Ages ago, anyway. It's all delightfully vague. But he's selling couturier clothing now."

"It sounds like one of Adam's strange story time-lines, one of his places. I wonder if that's why he wrote the scene with Juliette, where she's dressed?" Jilly paused, remembering the story. "Surely this Bonnard doesn't do all of that stuff in the story, you know, when Madelyn was watching from the chair?"

"I don't know. I mean, we are preparing for me to watch you and Adam, so maybe watching... maybe that's the point." Maddy mused out loud.

"No, it'll be some imperious woman in her fifties with too much make-up and fake blonde hair. She'll be completely jealous, because she'll see that I'm a hundred percent natural blonde." Jilly flounced her curls, which were, indeed, a pale honey blonde and all completely natural. "When are we booked? I'll tidy up downstairs, just in case."

" Jilly!"

"Mads, you're arranging a Jilly rogering for me, and still you're shocked?"

Maddy blushed. She wasn't used to her new self yet; the girl from the suburbs was never far away.

* * * *

It wasn't an imperious woman in her fifties who met them under the shop door's jangling bell.

"MISS Madeleine, goodness me, which one IS the delectable you, setting up this little divertissement? Oh, it HAS to be you, surely you? My word, SUCH a beauty, oh yes, yes indeed. And Miss Jillian? Oh, my heart, my favourite combination! I shall die. A divine slender goddess, Diana with her bow - but look, so strong! And you, Miss Jillian, such a sweet combination of curvaceous curves. Oh hark, look at your waist! Oh my days!" Bonnard swept them both into his shop, ushering them down the central aisle in a flurry of fluttering hands, faster than they could think.

He spun Jilly under his hand, twirling her around. "Oh my, just like Marilyn. You could have been her twin sister! How magnificent! And your own twins, what beautiful girls!" Even Jilly, who knew a thing or two about going over the top and going even further, was stunned into silence. Outrageous wasn't the word; and what fun, he was admiring her breasts already! Bonnard clapped his hands, clasping his fingers together so his delight couldn't get away. "Look at you both!"

"Mads, did he just clap his hands?" Jilly whispered.

"Now, now, naughty girl, no whispers, no keeping secrets from the wonderful Monsieur B." He giggled, and the women couldn't help themselves, they laughed too, their eyes wide with astonishment.

"Oh, the charm of laughing ladies! My day is done. I could die tonight and my life would be perfect." Bonnard's eyes sparkled, delighted with the outrageous effect he was having on the two women.

"My God," whispered Jilly, ignoring his instruction, "he's just like Adam wrote him!"

"What's that you say, sweetest thing? Is it Mister Cain of whom you speak? Oh, hush, he exaggerates terribly. Everything he says, every word he writes, it's all ridiculous. Every bit of it, it's all made up. I tell him every time, 'young man, you are completely unreliable.' I'm not like he wrote me at all. And that dreadful Madelyn creature, where on earth he conjured her from, I really don't know."

Bonnard studied Madeleine closely. "Although you, my dear, you do look rather familiar." He touched her hair with a delicate, inquisitive touch. "Perhaps that's it," he said to himself. "The colour and cut of your hair... it's quite different."

"Wait," said Maddy. "You know Adam? How long have you known Adam? How -"

"Adam?" And suddenly a shift came over him, as if Bonnard's mind had suddenly jumped a thousand miles, or a thousand years. "Adam Cain. Yes, I first met him at university, in the nineteen-seventies. I was older than him... let me see, thirty-four or thirty-five if I remember the year right."

Maddy looked at Bonnard and thought he probably knew exactly what year it was. He affected his airiness and his ethereal flights of fancy, but she suspected a snap-trap quick mind that didn't forget a moment. She wondered why Bonnard had spelt out the nineteen-seventies so precisely. The eighteen-seventies could hardly be an option. Maddy took Jilly's hand in hers.

"Please sit down, my dears, if I'm to tell you a story. Your Bonnard, such old bones, don't you see?" He gestured them towards a couch, where they sat, side by side, still holding hands.

"One moment, my divine young things. No interruptions. There must be no interruptions." He reached into the pocket of his waist-coat and produced an elaborate key. Holding it high in two fingers, he went to the shop door and turned the lock with a satisfying clunk, as if it were an ancient mechanism, yet well-oiled and perfectly maintained. He left the key in the lock, its velvet ribbon swaying. "There. Just us."

He returned to the women, and pulled up a chair to sit before them, his knees primly together. His two forefingers touched together, their tips at his lips. And he drifted back in time.

"What was he like, the young Adam?" Maddy asked, sensing all Bonnard needed was a prompt, to take him back into his tell, into his life-long days.

"Young Adam Cain? Can you imagine the man you know now, as a youth? A boy, really, he was only nineteen and a half when I first met him."

Maddy looked at Jillian, who shook her head. "No, I can't imagine Adam that young. Not at all."

"You would have died, my dears, swooned and seen heaven. I most certainly did, and so did some of those private school girls. Little blonde Virginia from a Catholic school, and dark Victoria down from the country. I can still remember their eyes."

"I can imagine that," commented Maddy. "He walks into a room even now, and you look up. His presence... yes, I can imagine that, those girls." She was picturing herself at the same age, uncertain, not quite sure, wanting to fit in.

"But what was he like?" Jilly insisted. "Was he all dark, moody and Byronic?"

"No, quite the opposite. I found out later that he lived up away from the coast, up on the highlands. So there he was, hair bleached blond from the summer pool, his skin a golden brown. Those blue eyes and long blond hair past his shoulders. A hippy boy really, quite the most beautiful angel."

Silence fell while the two women tried to conjure up an image of the young Adam; and Bonnard remembering well.

"Blond, you say, and golden brown from the sun?" Jillian's imagination was more active and eager than Maddy's and she was already picturing the slim young man, nearly nude in a pair of speedos. "He sounds gorgeous. Six foot tall already?"